At USA Today, Kevin Allen writes that with the proposed changes of 5-year contract limits and 7-years if you are re-signing your own players the NHL is about to enter the world of Sign and Trades.

Like in the NBA, a team would sign their own player to the max deal and then trade him to another team for assets.

He writes, “essentially, the sign-and-trade would force a player to decide where he might want to sign when his contract expires and then see if his former team could work it a deal. That’s not the same as opening up yourself to the highest bidder.”

Allen spoke with former GM Craig Button who agreed that this would eliminate the chances of a player